Melvins A Senile Animal Review
Artist: Melvins
Album: A Senile Animal
Genre(s): Heavy Metal, Rock
Subgenres(s): Doom Metal, Hardcore Punk, Sludge Metal, Stoner Rock
Released: 2006
Length: 41 minutes
Language(s): English
Label(s): Ipecac Recordings
Track List:
01. The Talking Horse
02. Blood Witch
03. Civilized Worm
04. A History of Drunks
05. Rat Faced Granny
06. The Hawk
07. You’ve Never Been Right
08. A History of Bad Men
09. The Mechanical Bride
10. A Vast Filthy Prison
A Senile Animal is the 15th album by sludge metal pioneers Melvins. Playing alongside founding members Buzz Osborne (guitar) and Dale Crover (drums) are bassist Jared Warren and drummer Coady Willis of Big Business. Having 2 drummers might sound redundant or gimmicky even for a band that pioneered the unlikely fusion of hardcore punk and doom metal but any sense of doubt is buried deep under an avalanche of marinated distortion and mayhem.
All 4 band members share vocal duties but you’ll be hard pressed to single out who’s who with their uniformed ghoulish wails. Aside from the odd line, the lyrics are hard to make out even at the best of times. In a way that can only be pulled off in rock music, the lack of clarity here adds a certain murky charm to A Senile Animal.
The blend of hardcore punk and unassuming doom metal plods with the aesthetics of stoner rock rings true to the sludge metal sound. Most songs on A Senile Animal lean heavily in favour of the hardcore punk influences as well as the unique styling of the Melvins. The major change comes with the last 3 songs; A History of Bad Men, The Mechanical Bride and A Vast Filthy Prison. They are on average 6.5 minutes long (whereas most other songs are about 3 minutes) and the tempo all but dies so that the Melvins can let the doom metal inspiration ooze out.
Their flexible song-writing and genre-bending styles add a wealth of depth that is rounded off by how fluidly drummers Dale Crover and Coady Willis play together. The Melvins will give you a real tour de force on A Senile Animal that you won’t find anywhere else.